Graham Wood aims to make Gateshead dreams a reality
Burnley. Blackburn. Wigan. Rotherham. Barnsley. They’re all towns on
the outskirts of the Peak District. They’ve all experienced regular
Championship football in recent times – the first three have even reached the
Holy Grail of the Premier League. Yet, according to the 2011 Census, all five
have lower populations than Gateshead’s 120,046. Look lower down the Football
League and teams like Fleetwood Town, Morecambe, Yeovil Town, Accrington
Stanley and Crawley Town stand out – these places are tiny. Why aren’t
Gateshead there? After all, the town is a vibrant part of a fabled footballing
hotbed in the North East of England. It is home to the Angel of the North, the
Sage, the Baltic Centre, both the Millennium and Tyne Bridges and the intu Metrocentre
– one of Europe’s largest shopping malls. Sandwiched between two Premier League
clubs whose home games attract a combined 100,000 attendance, Gateshead FC have
all the potential in the world.
Dudley, Salford, Wakefield and Warrington have the same potential. At least large town clubs like Bradford City,
Bristol City and Luton Town reached the top two divisions before falling away.
Whilst it’s far too simplistic to dream of a Football League comprised of the biggest 92 towns and cities, those 92 should at least be
asking the question of why they’re not there. For The Heed, 58th
biggest, it is now 54 years since their last taste of league football.
The Fourth Division was established in 1958 and, until the introduction
of automatic promotion and relegation in 1986, non-league sides could only gain
a league place by asking. Meanwhile, each year’s bottom four had to re-apply to
keep theirs. In those 28 years, only five sides failed to keep their place and
Gateshead – who finished third from bottom – became one of those victims in
1960, replaced by Peterborough United. For conspiracy theorists, all five sides were swapped for more southern teams and it’s
this injustice that inspires current chairman Graham Wood in his quest to get Gateshead
back where they belong.
“Every Gateshead fan still feels sore about 1960 and I’m no exception”,
he admits. “They’re my hometown club, I’ve always supported them and I want my
team to play at the highest possible level but it’d be nice to right that
wrong.”
A local engineer who worked his way up to Managing Director of heating heavyweights
Trianco-Redfyre, Wood took over Gateshead in 2006 with the club loitering in the
Northern Premier League Premier Division. Consecutive promotions saw The Heed
make the Conference Premier in 2009, where they’ve been ever since. It’s been
quite a rejuvenation under Wood - last season’s third-place finish was the
club’s highest league placing since 1960. Only Wembley heartbreak
from old-boy Ryan Donaldson halted the dream, in a 2-1 play-off
Final defeat to Cambridge United.
Much of last season’s success is attributed to manager Gary Mills. The
former European Cup winner replaced Anth Smith in August 2013 and the club
hasn’t looked back since. Wood believes Mills’ influence has been subtle but
effective: “There’s been a slight change in the system but, more than anything
else, it’s his great motivational skills. He spent his younger years at
Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough, so he’s learnt a few tricks from him. The
players really respect him.”
The Non-League Manager of the Year will hope to avoid what happened in
the mid-90s. After finishing seventh in 1994/95 and fifth in 1995/96, Gateshead
were relegated from the Conference just two years later. It’s vital that
momentum is maintained in what is a traditionally tough league to get out of.
Wood is aware that it has become commonplace for teams – once they’ve escaped
the Conference – to achieve back-to-back promotions and end up in League One.
“It’s a testimony to the strength of the Conference, but it’s the worst
league in regards to cost – there’s a tiny amount of sponsorship but you have
to spend big on wages to get out. In fact, the wages at the top end of the
Conference are probably better than in the bottom half of League Two”, he
believes. “It’d be worth about a million pounds in sponsorship money for
Gateshead to be in the Football League.”
Starting this season, intu Metrocentre are the club’s shirt sponsors
and Wood hopes this is the start of a prolific source of income. “It can help
the club in all sorts of ways. For example, we’re thinking of providing
transport from the Metrocentre to our ground on match days, so the ladies can
go shopping whilst the men go to our match – or vice versa! We’re also talking
about opening a club store.”
Standing alongside the Newcastle club store would be huge for Gateshead
but first of all they need the only guaranteed long-term revenue stream – more supporters.
But being in such close proximity to Newcastle and Sunderland is both a help and
a hindrance for the Heed Army. “They soak up a huge amount of interest and support
in this area and we suffer from that”, Woods concedes. “What we want to do at
the moment is attract fans from both clubs when they aren’t playing, so they
can have Gateshead as their second team.”
To do this, the club have offered season ticket holders from both clubs
the chance to buy discounted Heed tickets - £10 instead of £15. The average attendances
for the last five seasons at the International Stadium have been below 900 but
an extraordinary 8,202 fans attended May’s play-off semi-final with Grimsby, the
stadium’s biggest competitive football crowd. That night showed the club’s potential
and proved that there are 8,000 fans with at least a passing interest in their
fortunes. Their plan is to hook them in with on-field success – especially the disillusioned
Newcastle fans who have chose to relinquish their season tickets.
It was encouraging to see 1,800 turn up to this season’s opening home
game and, eventually, Gateshead will be ready to move into the new stadium that
the chairman has spoken of for five years. With a capacity of 7,856, it will be
built in the town centre. Originally meant to be ready for the 2012/13 season,
the project has stalled but Wood is adamant it will happen. “The new
stadium is still on. If you look at the crowd from the play-off and look at the
International Stadium’s facilities, you might ask yourself ‘What are we moving for?’
because it’s a superb facility.
“But the answer remains the same – it’s an athletics stadium and we
need a dedicated place for football. We can’t earn money from it during the
week, just match days. Even then, we don’t get catering profits! The plan with
our new stadium is to incorporate other facilities that will attract income
into the club. You don’t want an asset that sits idle all year, except for 40
or 50 hours. We’re in no rush to move out but if we can do significantly better
financially, it’s always going to be our objective to move into a purpose-built
stadium.”
Gateshead’s rise will accelerate furthermore when the new stadium opens.
If they can tap into some new clientele, the potential may finally be met. Wood
remains ambitious, yet cautious. “I think the optimum level of this club is
League One. Maybe if you have a really good year, you’ll get into the
Championship but I don’t think it’s realistic to say that Gateshead could
sustain a team at that level.”
In the meantime, it’s all about getting out of the Conference. 11
players were released in the summer, including Carl Magnay, Liam Hatch, Josh
Walker and Jack Lester. James Marwood – 15 goals last season – was sold to St
Mirren for an undisclosed fee and Marcus Maddison could also leave. But there
are many new faces too, such as Jon Shaw, Lewis Guy JJ O’Donnell and Alex
Rodman. Two convincing wins preceded a draw at Eastleigh a 6-1 drubbing at home
to Grimsby. Whilst Wood has put a lot of money into his club and would hate to
miss out on promotion again, he doesn’t regret following his heart.
“The return on my investment has several folds, really. The best I can
hope for is the club getting back into the Football League and becoming
sustainable. The next move up would certainly put Gateshead into
self-sufficiency. The other return on investment is that I just love doing it –
it’s my club and I can afford it but I’d hate to think that, when I die, the
club starts to fall away again. So no, I have no regrets at all.”
